Picture Books (2018)

The Picture Book Shortlist from 2018 is below – and the WINNER, with 27.3% of the vote was …

‘The Bear and the Piano’

‘A Child of Books’ by Oliver Jeffers

‘A Child of Books’ by Oliv­er Jef­fers

I am a child of books.

I come from a world of sto­ries.

A lit­tle girl sails her raft across a sea of words, arriv­ing at the house of a small boy. She invites him to go away with her on an adven­ture into the world of sto­ries … where, with only a lit­tle imag­i­na­tion, any­thing at all can hap­pen.

Irre­sistibly engag­ing char­ac­ters by Oliv­er Jef­fers set sail and chart their way through Sam Winston’s fas­ci­nat­ing typo­graph­i­cal land­scapes in this extra­or­di­nary ode to the pow­er and promis­es of sto­ry­telling. Forty trea­sured children’s clas­sics and lul­la­bies are fea­tured in the pic­tures, pro­vid­ing end­less oppor­tu­ni­ties for dis­cov­ery, mem­o­ries and shar­ing.

Woven togeth­er by a sim­ple sto­ry line, the one-of-a-kind illus­tra­tions in A Child of Books pro­vide an unfor­get­table read­ing expe­ri­ence that will inspire and encour­age read­ers of all ages to explore, ques­tion, and imag­ine time­less sto­ries of their own.

‘Pool’ by JiHyeon Lee

‘Pool’ by JiHyeon Lee

What hap­pens when two shy chil­dren meet at a very crowd­ed pool? Dive in to find out! Decep­tive­ly sim­ple, this mas­ter­ful book tells a sto­ry of qui­et moments and sur­pris­ing encoun­ters, and reminds us that friend­ship and imag­i­na­tion have no bounds.

‘Froodle’ by Antoinette Portis

‘Froo­dle’ by Antoinette Por­tis

In a nor­mal neigh­bor­hood, on a typ­i­cal day, the birds chirp, the dogs bark and the cats meow. When Lit­tle Brown Bird decides she doesn’t want to sing the same old song, out comes a new tune that shakes up the neigh­bor­hood and changes things for­ev­er in this fun­ny, inno­v­a­tive book that kids will love to read out loud.

‘The Bear and the Piano’ by David Litchfield

‘The Bear and the Piano’ by David Litch­field

One day, a young bear stum­bles upon some­thing he has nev­er seen before in the for­est. As time pass­es, he teach­es him­self how to play the strange instru­ment, and even­tu­al­ly the beau­ti­ful sounds are heard by a father and son who are pic­nick­ing in the woods. The bear goes with them on an incred­i­ble jour­ney to New York, where his piano play­ing makes him a huge star. He has fame, for­tune and all the music in the world, but he miss­es the friends and fam­i­ly he has left behind. A mov­ing tale of explo­ration and belong­ing from an excit­ing debut author-illus­tra­tor.

‘Emu’ by Claire Saxby and Graham Byrne

Did you know it’s the emu father who pro­tects the chicks? Fol­low a dot­ing dad as he keeps his brood safe — from when they are gran­ite-green eggs until they’re all grown up.

In the open euca­lyp­tus for­est of Aus­tralia, an emu as tall as a human set­tles down on his nest to warm and pro­tect the eggs left by his mate. When they hatch, the chicks will be ten times big­ger than domes­tic chick­en hatch­lings and cov­ered in choco­late-and-cream stripes to pro­vide cam­ou­flage in the grass­lands. This unusu­al fam­i­ly sticks togeth­er until the hatch­lings grow up, fac­ing dan­gers that include eagles and din­goes. Ornitho­log­i­cal­ly inclined young­sters will delight in this visu­al­ly strik­ing chron­i­cle full of fun emu facts.

‘Ada Twist, Scientist’ by Andrea Beaty

‘Ada Twist, Sci­en­tist’ by Andrea Beaty

Sci­en­tist Ada has a bound­less imag­i­na­tion and has always been hope­less­ly curi­ous. Why are there pointy things stuck to a rose? Why are there hairs grow­ing inside your nose? When her house fills with a hor­rif­ic, toe-curl­ing smell, Ada knows it’s up to her to find the source. What would you do with a prob­lem like this? Not afraid of fail­ure, Ada embarks on a fact-find­ing mis­sion and con­ducts sci­en­tif­ic exper­i­ments, all in the name of dis­cov­ery. But, this time, her exper­i­ments lead to even more stink and get her into trou­ble!